


i rewind the tape but all it does is pause (on the very moment all was lost).

by slimeprincess



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Eating Disorders, I project my feelings onto Awsten, M/M, Mental Health Issues, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:27:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slimeprincess/pseuds/slimeprincess
Summary: Geoff’s coffee gets cold; the ice in Awsten’s tea melts. Neither of them mentions any of it. When they part, Geoff hugs him for a few seconds too long, but he fits so it’s okay.He pretends the worry in Geoff’s eyes is about something else.
Relationships: Awsten Knight/Geoff Wigington
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	i rewind the tape but all it does is pause (on the very moment all was lost).

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just a vent piece that i wrote to cope with how things are right now. please don't read this if you know it will upset or trigger you. 
> 
> the title isn't mine; it's taylor swift lyrics.

The crowded coffee shop sets him on edge; he sits at a table in the corner sipping his unsweetened iced green tea, swirling it around in the cup and listening to the ice clink together. He shivers even under the weight of two jackets.

“Awsten!” A familiar voice calls his name, and he looks up from the table, only to see his best friend sitting across from him. He forces a smile and a greeting, the same thought repeating over and over again in his head. _Say it, just please say it._

“How are you doing?” Geoff asks, taking off his coat and draping it over the back of the chair. Awsten blinks at him, taking a long sip of tea. _‘You look so skinny” — it’s so simple; just tell me I look small._

“Been fine,” Awsten answers, and he knows that neither of them believes it. It’s been two weeks since he last saw Geoff in person; since then, Awsten has lost nine pounds. 

He can feel himself weighing down the chair he sits in; a man squeezes past their table and Awsten is suddenly far too aware of how much space he takes up. He inhales and holds it. 

Geoff looks like he wants to say something, but before he can speak, they’re calling his order out, and he gets up to retrieve his coffee. The barista’s hands are pale, and Awsten can see her bones; it makes his stomach sink with envy.

The two of them talk about a lot of nothing, unasked questions hanging heavy in the air between them. Awsten asks about Otto, and Jawn, about Geoff’s work, about normal things as he runs his fingertips over his own collarbones, making sure they’re as prominent as they were yesterday. 

Geoff’s coffee gets cold; the ice in Awsten’s tea melts. Neither of them mentions any of it. When they part, Geoff hugs him for a few seconds too long, but he fits so it’s okay. 

He pretends the worry in Geoff’s eyes is about something else.

* * *

Awsten longs for the haze of summer, long hours of daylight fading into quiet evenings, the soft hum of cicadas serenading them from outside drifting through the open windows. 

Geoff would be playing some video game that Awsten is too lazy to try and understand, but still, he’d sit and watch, hugging his knees to his chest. 

He’d be eating strawberries, the juice staining his hands and looking like blood. He’s not counting numbers in his head; instead, he leans over and feeds Geoff a strawberry, pushing the end past his lips and feeling too shy to gaze at him for too long. But he can pretend that it means nothing, at least for now. He takes a sip of lemonade and feels the bitterness in his jaw — it tastes how the sunshine feels. 

But it’s not summer, he’s not watching video games at Geoff’s apartment – the air is cold, and he is alone. 

There is half an apple, a can of orange juice, and an expired bottle of salad dressing in his refrigerator. The sun sets in the afternoon. The cicadas are dead. 

Geoff is tired of him, and he’s getting tired of himself. 

The world is loud.

* * *

Awsten scrolls Geoff’s twitter when he can’t sleep, and all of the words blur together on his phone screen. The last tweet was five days ago. 

He stares at himself in the mirror, studying the soft-looking parts of his body and wanting to gag. Even in the low lamplight, he can zero in on the imperfections. 

It takes him an hour and forty-five minutes to reply to a text message, and all he sends is a string of emojis, displaying emotions he hasn’t felt for months. 

Before ending the conversation, Geoff tells him to be safe, and it makes Awsten throw his phone across the room.

* * *

The days and weeks blend together in a growing cluster of time; nights bleed into days, into evenings and to mornings spent sitting in his apartment pretending he were dead. The empty, aching feeling inside of his body is the only thing that makes him feel alive. 

When he and Geoff next meet, it’s a Tuesday and the shop is much less noisy; it’s tranquil. The barista wiping the counter is humming the new Taylor Swift song under her breath. 

Geoff looks as tired as Awsten feels. They exchange kind words, pleasant conversations until Geoff really looks at him, and Awsten falls silent. “Do you think… do you think you could eat something?” Awsten’s hand twitches with the desire to slap him. 

He doesn’t eat a thing, same as yesterday. And the day before that. 

When they hug goodbye, Awsten visually traces patterns in the tile on the floor. 

* * *

He tells his therapist that not eating is white like snow, cold and unfeeling. She nods, writing it down, and Awsten feels small. 

Everything is muted. Her voice, light and melodic like a bell, is purple. She asks all the right questions, gentle and empathetic, and Awsten hates her for it.

When she asks about Geoff, Awsten can’t think of a single thing to say. 

Before he leaves, she asks him if he can try and eat dinner. He says yes, and it’s a lie.

* * *

Geoff always texts him good morning and good night. He doesn’t ask any more invasive questions. Sometimes he texts back, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes it’s days before they speak. Awsten wonders if it’s possible to forget how to communicate. 

The scale whispers sweet nothings to him in the form of blinking green numbers. The mirror yells obscenities to him every morning, ones he can’t tune out. 

Awsten feels like ice, like glass, like the world is out to shatter him. He makes friends with 3AM, hours after Geoff’s good night text. Hunger is quiet at night. 

Geoff posts photos on Instagram with Otto, and they’re smiling. Awsten thinks about commenting, but he’d rather ghost all of his social media than show himself like this. And he doesn’t know what he would even say. 

By February he’s skipping out on meeting up with Geoff, his list of excuses growing shorter and shorter. He hasn’t answered Jawn’s texts in weeks. Awsten spends a lot of time lying in bed, thinking about when things were better; he wants to go back, and he also wants everything to stay the same.

Summer feels like it was years ago, and with each day his apartment grows colder.

* * *

In March, after cancelling for the sixth time in a row, Geoff shows up at his apartment. Awsten doesn’t want to answer the door but he does anyway; emotionless eyes framed by dark circles stare up at him, daring him to show pity – Awsten wants an excuse to get angry because anything is better than the nothingness. 

They step inside and Geoff hugs him; it hurts like he’s being crushed, and it makes him feel real. They still fit together. Awsten wants to push him away, but he is far too tired. He can feel his pulse in his throat. 

“You’re not okay, Awsten,” Geoff says then, and it isn’t a question. He tries to let it make him mad, to push the resentment to the forefront of his mind, but Awsten is just so _tired_. 

The words fall from his cold lips before he can think to stop them, and it’s like the glass, or the ice, or whatever it is inside of him splinters into a million little pieces. “No, I’m not.”

Awsten expects more questions; all of the unspoken words between them buzz in his head like a swarm of angry wasps. There are silent accusations, all of the _you’re killing yourself_ s and the _this is hurting us too_ s that he reads in the eyes of everyone who looks at him. 

He leans on Geoff, weakness clawing at his chest, and closes his eyes, bracing himself for words like _relapsing_ and _hospitalisation_ and _re-feeding_. There’s a drawn-out silence that that makes Awsten’s stomach turn; Geoff finally says, “it’s okay to not be okay,” and Awsten almost bursts into tears because somehow that is exactly what he needed to hear. 

He feels seen, as though he were tucked between fragments of reality until right this moment. He loves and hates it.

* * *

They sit on the couch together, watching some television show that Awsten doesn’t care about in the slightest, and he rests his head on Geoff’s thigh, his eyes half-closed. For once, everything is warm.

He doesn’t eat, but he manages to drink some Gatorade to hydrate himself. Geoff tells him about life outside of his apartment, about Jawn, about Otto. They lose track of the show’s storyline, focused instead on conversations about everything and nothing. The universe seems small, and Awsten remembers what it feels like to laugh. He’s still all too aware of how much space he takes up on the couch. He pretends to believe the nice things that Geoff says to him, but he knows he isn’t fooling either of them.

The sun goes down outside, bathing the world in oranges and purples, but all Awsten can see is blue. They don’t run out of things to talk about until long after the stars begin twinkling in the sky; it’s late when they both finally fall silent. 

Geoff stays overnight, and Awsten falls asleep just like that to the white noise of the television, his head in Geoff’s lap and his legs draped over the arm of the couch. He can’t remember ever feeling so comfortable. 

It’s the first real night of sleep he’s had in months.

* * *

When he wakes, daylight is streaming through the blinds on his windows, open for the first time since he can remember. Awsten feels like the whole world can see him.

The television is off, and Geoff is gone, probably has been at work for hours now. His almost-dead phone shows one new message – it’s the good morning text. His heart feels too big for his chest. 

Awsten replies with a(n ironic) heart eyes emoji, and his world is quiet.

* * *

It’s April, and Awsten knows things have to change; he’s just too weak to do anything about it. If he’s not holed up in his apartment alone, wasting away, he’s with Geoff, probably driving him insane with clinginess. 

He thinks that eventually, it’s not going to be okay for him to not be okay anymore – it can’t keep going on like this forever. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore. 

Awsten falls asleep on an empty stomach, listening to the drops of rain and melting snow patter against the windowpane. His bedroom is cold.

It doesn’t feel like it, but outside it is spring.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading all the way to the end, if you're still here. maybe someday i'll write a sequel wherein everything gets resolved, but not right now.


End file.
